Another bit of roadside architecture demolished

This old service station once housed Lucille’s Foral. It was demolished this week. Photo by Barry Kooda

Cockrell Hill is getting a new CVS, but it’s at the expense of a piece of mid-20th century roadside architecture.

The service station pictured above, on the northeast corner of Jefferson at Cockrell Hill, was demolished this week, along with two adjacent buildings.

The service station most recently housed Lucille’s Floral, which opened originally in Cockrell Hill in 1951. The flower shop’s previous location, the former Hill Theater (once owned by Gene Autry), burned in 1999, so the shop moved across the street to this old service station.

These three buildings were demolished this week to make way for a CVS store in Cockrell Hill. Photo via Google Maps

But then in 2002 the state agency now known as the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality informed the flower shop’s owner that she had to remove three underground gasoline tanks in order to continue using the building legally. Neither the business owner nor the city of Cockrell Hill could afford the estimated $13,000 to remove them, so the business closed. The building remained vacant after that.

Before the construction of what is now Interstate 30, West Jefferson and West Davis were part of the old Bankhead Highway system that ran from San Diego, Calif. to Washington, D.C., and they still contain examples of 1930s-’60s roadside architecture.